


Grateful

by imagineagreatadventure



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, crack ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-16 16:09:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11832276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagineagreatadventure/pseuds/imagineagreatadventure
Summary: Dickon survives the dragon queen and finds love north.





	Grateful

**Author's Note:**

  * For [openmouthwideeye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/openmouthwideeye/gifts), [Isola_Caramella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isola_Caramella/gifts), [usefulspinster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/usefulspinster/gifts).



_Ser Jaime must have escaped the Queen,_ Dickon thought. _Or else he’d be here with Father and_ _I . . . standing in front of a dragon._

Dickon saw the way Jaime had charged on his horse to fight the beast. It was something out of a song or a tale — especially since the older man did not burn up but was saved by another. Who saved him, Dickon didn’t know, but he wished he had been the one to do it.  

Now he stood here, unwilling to bend to a Targaryen Queen. 

He still did not understand why they did not bend the knee. The Tarlys fought for the Mad King, the silver haired Queen’s father, during the war as it was their duty to follow their liege lord — and Lord Mace Tyrell had chosen to fight for his Targaryen King. And now Lord Mace was dead and we serve his killer. 

His father stood resolute and so Dickon knew he had to follow. He didn’t want to see the disappointment on his Father’s face — even if that meant death. 

“Don’t let your house die,” Tyrion Lannister told him and it was then he hesitated. But Sam was still alive — even if he wore the black — and his sister and mother… 

If he died for Father, Talla and Mother would be all alone. Sam wore the black and would soon wear chains around his neck. He could not protect them from this new war. 

Dickon looked into the Targaryen’s eyes.

And knelt.

~

His father did not burn alive that day as the rest did. For Dickon’s choice, Randyll Tarly's head was chopped off by one of the Queen’s foreign warriors, who hissed with delight after the act.

Dickon did not realize he had wept until Tyrion Lannister had handed him a handkerchief afterwards. “You are too important of a hostage to trust on the battlefield,” the Imp had said afterward, his eyes so kind that Dickon felt dreadful for thinking of the man as an Imp. “You will be sent to Dragonstone. The Queen and I shall both be going back.”

Dickon wondered at this but said nothing, too upset at his father’s death to truly understand. 

At Dragonstone he was sent to his own set of rooms. It was truly a beautiful, ornate, ancient prison that he was now living in. The sea hit the cliffs and the sands below Dickon’s window and he watched and waited for something to happen.

A handsome young man who looked barely older than himself came into his rooms. “You’re Sam’s brother?” he asked, his voice drenched in a Northern accent. 

“You know Sam?” Dickon asked, perplexed. 

The stranger laughed and held out his hand. “I’m Jon Snow.”

Dickon had heard the name. “You’re the one who has declared himself King in the North.”

Jon Snow’s eye twitched but he nodded. “Aye and I need your help.”

“Did you ask Queen Daenerys?” Dickon didn’t understand what the King in the North was doing allying himself with a Targaryen Queen. 

“I did,” Jon sighed. “She agreed to let you come with us.”

“Where?”

“North of the wall.”

~

Wight hunting did not go as planned but Dickon suspected that there was barely a plan in place before they headed north. It was a miracle they were all still alive. Jon said that Dickon’s presence saved them all and while Dickon flushed at the praise, he didn’t think it was true.  

“Back to Dragonstone now?” he asked Jon.

Jon shook his head. “I will be but I need you to go to Winterfell and show the Northmen the evidence you found. Tormund will go with you as will Sandor and Gendry. The rest will come back with me.”

“The big woman will be there,” the wildling grinned. 

Jon shook his head, clearly amused. “Big woman?” Dickon asked, half-expecting to see a female giant in Winterfell’s courtyard.

“Aye,” Tormund said, grinning. “And I’m going to steal her.”

~

They came to Winterfell in a strange time - Dickon could sense the tension the moment he went past the guards. It made him stand straighter and taller - wondering where the enemy was coming from. He wasn’t sure what was going on until he saw two pretty girls glowering at one another and a large woman in armor near them who looked ready to step in if more than just words were thrown between the Stark ladies. The woman looked oddly familiar but Dickon couldn’t remember why.

“The big one,” Tormund said, nudging Dickon in the stomach and gesturing at the armored woman. “And those are Snow’s sisters, I think. I only met the one who was kissed by fire but the other girl looks like him don't you think?” 

“Arya,” Gendry said about the girl who looked like Jon. Gendry looked close to running to her side -- looked ready to leap to battle for her. “I wonder if she’ll remember me.”

Sandor Clegane had no worries regarding this. “Little bird,” he called out to the red-headed girl that Dickon presumed was Sansa Stark. She faced them all and Dickon was surprised by her beauty. “Won’t you welcome me back with a song?”

Lady Sansa’s mouth fell open in shock but it was Lady Arya was the one who responded. “I thought you died,” she told the Hound when she approached them. “I thought Brienne killed you,” she said, pointing back at the woman Tormund gazed at. The armored woman stared at Sandor but did not come to them. Her hand was on the hilt of her sword and Dickon did not doubt that she could fight. The look in her eyes said it all.

 Before the Hound could say a thing, Gendry spoke instead. “I thought you died, m’lady,” he told Lady Arya. 

"I'm alive," she told him and smiled. "Hot Pie is too."

Dickon edged away from the reunion that was growing larger as Sansa Stark joined them. Instead of loitering by people he did not know, he chose to follow Tormund who approached the “big woman” the way wolves approached their next meal. The woman was no beauty, but something in her eyes captured Dickon’s attention right away. 

“Lady Brienne,” he said, remembering what Lady Arya had called her. “I am Ser-Lord Dickon Tarly.”

“I know who you are,” she told him. She did not sound happy and Dickon strained to remember why she wouldn’t like him. “I beat you in King Renly’s melee.”

Dickon flushed and then remembered. She had beat him soundly. “You were in his rainbow guard.” He chose not to mention that many believed she had killed him. 

But she seemed to know that was in his thoughts. “Stannis killed him,” she told Dickon. “And I killed Stannis.”

Dickon's father hated Brienne. Thought she was a distraction and a nuisance. He remembered the bet those awful men had made regarding her maidenhead and wondered how much she knew about it. His father would not believe that she killed Stannis but Dickon remembered how she fought and how she loved their King. She watched him with devotion and Dickon had wondered how anyone could think she killed Renly.

But she would kill Stannis. Of that he had no doubt. 

~

Tormund spent most of the evening nursing his injuries from attempting to fight Brienne. He wished to steal her, he informed Dickon with cheer, and didn’t seem disappointed that he hadn’t yet. “I’ll only be disappointed if you beat me to it,” Tormund said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not one of you southrons, I say what I mean. I can see you want her too.”

Dickon didn’t know about that. He couldn’t know about it. Every time he looked into her blue eyes, the memory of his father’s anger burned into him. His father had raged for hours about Lady Brienne’s deception — about how she beat Dickon and the rest of Renly’s knights plagued him. The embarrassment to King Renly and Lord Tyrell and Lord Tarth!

But no one seemed embarrassed, Dickon recalled. Except perhaps Loras Tyrell. And the men who had bet on Lady Brienne’s maidenhead. 

Knowing what he did now, Dickon was happy she beat those terrible men into the ground. 

It was fun to watch her fight. Not in an amusing way, the way that Lord Baelish seemed to think it was, but it was thrilling to watch her fight against others especially when her opponent was Lady Arya. It was more like a dance than a fight. 

“You were wonderful, my lady,” he complimented her after one training session. 

Lady Brienne seemed skeptical of his words but nodded. “Thank you, Lord Tarly.”

He felt a jolt at his new title and grimaced. She seemed to notice. “I am sorry for your loss,” she said, her eyes sad. He knew she disliked his father and was surprised by how genuine she seemed. 

But that was who she was, Dickon realized, almost wishing he had asked about her to Ser Jaime. Dickon knew they had traveled together once — it was during this that Ser Jaime lost his hand — and he suddenly desperately wanted to know everything.

And so one night he asked her.

The story was more than he ever dreamed. He felt sorry for her and almost sorrier for Ser Jaime. He also wondered about things he refused to name out loud, especially to Brienne. But he could not help but wonder.

~

It wasn’t far into winter that Dickon realized that he loved Brienne. He was ashamed of it. His father would not have been pleased with Brienne as a potential Lady of Horn Hill. And there was no time for any of this — the White Walkers were coming soon to the Wall and they were all needed to fight. Love had no meaning in a war against the dead. "All the living have to fight against the dead," Sansa said on her cousin’s behalf because by now they knew the truth of Jon Snow’s parentage. 

“You’ll see your brother there,” Bran Stark told Dickon one day. Dickon had found himself by the heart tree, wondering what its eyes had seen when he ran into the only living male heir of Ned Stark. 

“I will?” Dickon asked, hopeful for a glimpse of Sam. He had not behaved justly to Sam and his wildling girl, Gilly, when he had last seen them and wished to correct it. 

Bran said nothing else that made Dickon hopeful — all of it prophesied dark ends. The only bliss during this terrible time was Littlefinger’s death at the hands of Brienne, on the Stark sisters' orders. 

Dickon had found Brienne afterward in the halls. She looked tired. “I dislike executing men,” she said. “Even if it is just.”

“Killing is not a pleasant business,” Dickon replied, thinking of his conversation with Ser Jaime and Ser Bronn. “It is a terrible one.”

“At least we will be fighting the dead instead of the living now,” Brienne said, her blue eyes bright. The brightness enveloped Dickon in warmth as he gazed into her pretty eyes. 

“Unless Queen Cersei goes through with her threats,” Dickon said. Queen Daenerys’ letter requesting his presence at the Wall also included information about the Lannister queen’s next steps, none of which were aimed to help fight against the threat on the living. “Then we may be doomed to fight more of the living.”

“Her brother…” Brienne cautiously said.

Treading softly, Dickon replied, “Lord Tyrion?”

She looked stricken. “No… I’m sorry Lord Dickon but I must rest,” she said. “Tomorrow will be a long day of travel.”

“Call me Dickon, Lady Brienne,” he told her, trying to get her to smile or even laugh the way others had done at his name. 

She did neither thing. “Brienne,” she only said. "You can call me Brienne. I'm not - not a lady."

"You are to me," Dickon said.

He couldn't tell if she heard.

~

He kissed her for the first time a month into the war. He had been afraid she was about to die from her wounds and kissed her lips, hoping to save her from death the way Ser Beric saved Lord Thoros. Her lips were soft and when she sighed, he knew she was safe. He wept from relief and then kissed her again. 

~

He married her under a godswood tree. Tormund japed about stealing her away but was quite shy when Brienne offered to dance with Tormund, a strange look in her eye as if she knew the wildling would not dare. She was wrong, of course, Tormund danced her around the fire making everyone laugh including Brienne herself. The wildling then held out his hand to little Lady Lyanna Mormont who grinned and spun around. 

The wall was soon to fall, they all knew. No wedding could stop their possible doom tomorrow. Jon seemed sadder than usual — even when Dickon’s brother tried to talk to their King. Not even Sam could make Jon Snow smile. 

“Bed her!” cried out one of the wildlings when Dickon danced with Brienne. He flushed but Brienne did not, too worn from the war to care over what a man said. 

When he did find his room in Castle Black, the fire was lit but still their limbs felt frozen until they wrapped themselves around each other. He kissed her neck from behind as they lay together in the bed, kissed her all the way down her back until he reached the small of her back. Dickon wrapped his hand around her front then and found her wet and wanting. 

“Please?” Brienne said and Dickon obliged her. 

Again and again until at last they both lay gasping in bed, holding onto each other as if they were drowning in happiness.

~

When Dickon found himself on the island of Tarth, he fell in love for the second time. “It is like you,” he told Brienne, when she asked why he looked so happy. 

She flushed and he kissed her, laughing. 

He was glad he left Horn Hill to Talla. Talla would make Horn Hill a home again. Dickon knew his father would haunt him there and that Brienne would be miserable in that place. Tarth was her home — Tarth was full of her people — and it was her duty to stand by them, she told him. 

Brienne was good — _too good for me_ , he often thought — but it seemed she thought the same of him. “We will have a family here,” he told her. “You can even name our firstborn Renly if you’d like.”

Sadness was ill-suited on her face but, still, it lay there. “I was hoping to name him Jaime.”

Dickon blinked away tears, remembering how Ser Jaime had died fighting the White Walkers, his sword in his hand bursting into flame as he cut across dozens of dead men. He knew the truth of his wife and Ser Jaime now. Knew that his wife had loved him — but he could not be angry at her for that. _She loves me just as well as she ever loved him - mayhaps better._  “I would like that, Brienne.”

She kissed him and he held her, grateful that he could. 

Grateful that he knelt.

**Author's Note:**

> So this crack ship started as a tumblr joke but I have such fondness for it now. Like it's super cute and I wish he had survived!! Anyways hope you enjoyed it!


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